I’m perhaps eight hours into Torment: Tides of Numenera, and I’m pleased to say it’s still feeling very much like Planescape: Torment. Let me count the ways…

So far, very little combat. That’s not to say that there haven’t been opportunities for combat, but I’m playing a cerebral, semi-persuasive type with only slightly more health than a wet paper bag, so my inclination is to find as many non-violent solutions as possible. Tides of Numenera has allowed me to talk my way through numerous confrontations–or at least given me the chance to do so. An encounter with some corrupted artificial intelligence drones in a long-buried technological enclave (which reminded me delightfully of some elements from A Memory in the Black and A Dragon at the Gate) wound up going sideways on me. I tried to talk and think my way through it, but those insane AI types are touchy folk, and I soon found myself in a running (though turn-based) fight through a technological labyrinth as I tried to reach three interface nodes that would let me turn off the drones that I hadn’t yet spell-blasted to pieces.

I forgot to get a screenshot when I was there, so I pulled this from the Internets of the same area…

I was having a rough time of it until I realized something ToN lets you do that its predecessors (both P:T and Baldur’s Gate, for example) do not: I could interact with the environment to access some terminals during combat. It cost me an action to do it–and at one point I had a character at the right panel but she kept getting blasted away from it, able only to struggle back to it before her turn ended–but once I’d figured out that such a thing was possible, things gradually swung back my way again.

Non-standard NPCs make you view them less as walking skill-packs and more as actual characters. Even with Baldur’s Gate 2, arguably the best old-school, standard D&D computer RPG, I had a tendency to recruit people to my party based on what was needed. (“I’m playing a thief already, so I don’t really need Yoshi, I could take the druid but I’ve already got Jaheira AND Viconia, so they’ve got those spells covered…”) Planescape: Torment was somewhat different. (“I’ve got a walking skull that’s kind of a fighter/thief, but where’s a healer? I can’t find one until halfway into the game?? How’s this walking flame guy fit into things? I don’t really need him, but he’s interesting. …Wait, there’s a rogue Modron character?? I don’t care what he does, I want to talk to him!”)

Same thing here. I think the first two characters I met were spellcaster types (or nanos, since it’s the “significantly advanced technology” sort of magic here), which matched my own class, but I chose between them because of how much I trusted one over the other and booted the other out even though that meant just walking around with only one other NPC for a bit. Later I picked up a little girl that I found hiding in some rubble. She’s charming, and seems to be good at hiding, but I’m keeping her in the party because someone has to take care of her, not because she’s–so far–of any real use. And now I just ran into a glowing guy who seems a bit off his rocker. He’s providing some much-needed fighting ability to the party, but I’m tempted to tell him to take a hike because he honestly seems like a danger to himself and others, and he’s also a problematic person to have around due to a tendency toward borrowing things that don’t belong to him. On the other hand, he’s interesting.

…Okay, maybe he’s a little too interesting…

Detailed lore for items, even if they’re not all that important. While only cosmetic, this one is still great to see. You’re walking in a world of amazing technologies, peoples, and concepts that itself is built upon billions of years of lost civilizations. The artifacts and oddities you find should back that up, and it’s heartening to see that things that in other games might simply be called “vendor junk” (items with no real use beyond being sold for money) have some actual lore to them. A lot of games nowadays don’t have this, and it’s sorely missed. It’s the difference between engaging the player and making exploration seem like just another exercise in gold-farming.

Other games might give you just a title for the item devoid of any further description or depth. What’s more, this is an actual usable item, which I guess isn’t the best example of my point, but it raises another: it’s an item that has a more complex effect than “gives 3% greater resistance to fire” or something like that, which you might find in other games which shall remain nameless…

Adahn. Okay, so this is a minor one, but I ran into someone who knew my character as “Adahn,” the (fake?) name often used by The Nameless One from P:T. I confess, I laughed out loud when that happened. Add that to the fact that I’m playing someone walking around in a body previously used by a god before he got tired of it (and my consciousness apparently moved to fill it after), and the whole “you’ve done things you don’t remember” vibe from P:T is definitely there still.

So I’m a sucker for in-jokes. Wanna fight about it?

There’s a lot more to tell, of course, but I’ll have to include that later. In some ways this game feels very much like an adventure game with regard to figuring out puzzles, speaking to people, and exploring. The world itself is fascinating with its far-future lore. It’s really a joy to explore. Note that I did not mean for that to rhyme. I also hope I’m expressing myself well enough because my brain is currently filled with mucus due to a cold I’m fighting, so forgive me if I sound like a blithering idiot here…

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you already know that Planescape: Torment–an incredible story-driven cRPG based on the Dungeons & Dragons Planescape setting, released in 1999 from Black Isle Studios–is among my top 5 PC games of all time. You can therefore imagine how interested I was to get my hands on its spiritual successor, Torment: Tides of Numenera. Funded via Kickstarter, and developed by some of the same folks involved with P:T, it’s not a direct sequel, nor is it even set in the Planescape setting. Nonetheless, from all of the press releases and previews, the game seemed to be cut from the same cloth in terms of artistic direction, general gameplay, and imagination. Today, Tides of Numenera was officially released, and I wasted no time getting my geeky hands on it. What follows are my very first impressions after about an hour of playing…

“But wait, Michael!” says the helpful hypothetical reader, “I haven’t played Planescape: Torment! Hang on one second and tell me just what kind of game this Tides of Numenera is supposed to be!”

The best way to describe it would be to quote ToN’s manual directly, since the game’s makers put in a lot of effort to sum up their game in a nice little quotable capsule (and even ask me to use that very description): Tides of Numenera is a single player, story-driven, sci-fi/fantasy game set on Earth, one billion years in the future. (The makers suggest I emphasized those last words for maximum effect, so, there ya go.) 🙂

Beyond that, I didn’t really know quite what to expect when I started playing. There was a story-related trailer released a little while back, but I intentionally avoided that one. I’d already been sold on the look and feel of the game, and some of the gameplay, so I wanted to come into ToN’s story as fresh as I could. I didn’t even know it was set on Earth until I’d read that description above.

You’re literally plunged into the game from the moment you begin, with your character coming to awareness as he or she plummets out of the stratosphere and smashes–eventually–into the Earth below. Character creation is dealt with hand in hand with a basic tutorial as you find yourself in a mysterious place filled with pools of dripping light, hexagonal stone structures that appear and disappear as you move, and spectral projections of beings that claim to be fragments of– Well, I won’t go into too many spoilers on that front. I can definitely say that the art design immediately succeeds in calling to mind P:T. As I explored, both via moving my character and via the rich descriptions and choices presented in the text box, that reminiscence grew even stronger. Soon I’d escaped the strange place I woke in, ran into a pair of mysterious companions (a man with moving tattoos on his forearms, and a woman that appears to be split into multiple versions of herself), and used a skill specific to my class to get a rather abusively passive-aggressive computer entity to divulge an item that may soon be useful (if it doesn’t kill me first).

Take a look at this and tell me it doesn’t remind you of Planescape. I dare you!

One thing that differs a bit from P:T is that you choose at least part of your character’s path in the beginning. With P:T you were able–after playing a while–to switch your character between mage, fighter, and thief classes. With ToN, you choose your class (known in the game as a “type”), as well as an accompanying descriptor. So far the types (nano, glaive, and jack) seem equivalent to the three classes from P:T. The descriptors are a little different. There’s more of those, each with names like “wrathful,” “intelligent,” “clever,” and “mystical.” (There are more as well.) Each grants different bonuses and penalties. I’m playing a “mystical nano.” At some point in the game, I’ll also pick up a “focus,” which unlocks other unique abilities. Focuses, apparently, have names like “Breathes Shadow” or “Brandishes a Silver Tongue.” So perhaps I’ll eventually be a “mystical nano who slices the moon with a single look” or something. We’ll see.

Part of the character creation process. I went with the “Scan Thoughts” and “Innervate” abilities.

Combat is turn-based, with each character having a movement and attack action to spend. I haven’t had much of a look at this yet. I’ll have to say more in a future blog entry as I progress. Bottom line, I’m enjoying exploring this world. The concept of being a castoff body of an immortal being is intriguing, and I want to know just what this thing called “The Sorrow” is that’s trying to kill me is. Plus my character can read NPCs’ surface thoughts due to a special ability, and that’s just fun to mess around with…

Spinning, glowing cones that giggle and hover in mid-air for no reason I can figure out? Feels like I’m back in the City of Doors.

I hope to have something new up soon, but in the meantime, take a look at this IGN video review of the just-released Pillars of Eternity. If you’re like me, you consider Baldur’s Gate 2 and Planescape: Torment some of the best PC RPG experiences ever, and the people behind PoE would seem to agree with us. As the IGN reviewer says, it “feels like Neil Gaiman is playing dungeon master.”

I haven’t had time to actually PLAY this yet, but I’m anxious to dive into it.